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Welcome to the second episode of Sustainable Infrastructure, an interview series from ORIS Materials Intelligence. In this podcast, we bring together civil engineers, ESG leaders, policymakers, and construction executives to share real-world strategies for building sustainable infrastructure fit for the environmental and social challenges of the 21st century.
Most infrastructure companies say they care about carbon. But how many actually measure it at the design stage? And of those who measure, how many actually act on the data?
David Orr has spent the last three years answering these questions at global scale. As Product Lead for Mott MacDonald's Moata Carbon Portal, he has watched the platform grow from serving a handful of transport projects to supporting infrastructure assessments across 55 countries, spanning energy transmission, water networks, airports, and linear infrastructure. This isn't just another "we built a tool" story. It's a front-row view of what actually happens when engineering firms try to embed carbon thinking into existing workflows: the enthusiasm, the hesitation, the cultural barriers in a sector that doesn't easily share information.
David brings an unusual perspective to infrastructure decarbonisation: a political science background (MPhil from Cambridge) that led him through fieldwork in emerging markets such as India and Kenya before moving into product leadership at a B2B SaaS platform. He's seen both the policy side and the engineering trenches.
From the moment a spreadsheet becomes insufficient to the point where AI can suggest real-time design alternatives, Renaud de Montaignac (ORIS co-founder) and David explore the messy reality of scaling carbon measurement. They discuss why water and energy sectors move at different speeds, what separates genuine transformation from "carbon theatre," and why Moata's name (Māori for "preparedness") captures the mindset needed to start before you're ready.
Despite growing regulatory pressure and corporate net-zero commitments, carbon measurement remains far from standard practice in infrastructure design.
David identifies three core obstacles that prevent mass adoption across the sector:
First, the infrastructure industry's conservative nature creates hesitancy around sharing methodologies and data between organisations. Even when collaboration would accelerate learning.
Second, existing workflows weren't designed with carbon in mind, making integration technically simple but culturally complex. Engineers face the challenge of integrating carbon assessments into already compressed timelines without clear guidance on how to act on the results.
Third, the "measurement theatre" problem persists: organisations conduct assessments to satisfy compliance requirements but lack the internal conviction or supply chain alignment to actually optimise designs based on carbon data. As David notes, "there's a lot of enthusiasm at first, it's something we need to do. But just like with any change cycle, there'll then be maybe a bit more hesitation, as it gets trickier about how you try and embed it into existing workflows."
The path from pilot project to enterprise-wide transformation requires more than technical capability. More than that, it demands organisational change management that few firms have prioritised.
Moata Carbon Portal's 10-year journey from spreadsheet to AI-powered platform mirrors the broader maturation of infrastructure decarbonisation tools. What started as a transport-focused calculation tool has evolved into a multi-sector solution that democratises carbon expertise beyond specialists.
Instead of replacing human judgment, the platform's AI capabilities extend the knowledge of carbon specialists to engineers and designers who make critical decisions at project inception. This "expertise embedding" approach is essential in infrastructure, where early design choices account for 70-80% of a project's embodied carbon.
By enabling engineers to evaluate material alternatives, local sourcing options, and design configurations with immediate carbon feedback, Moata shifts the conversation from post-hoc reporting to proactive optimisation. The platform now supports linear infrastructure sectors, including energy transmission, water networks, and transport projects, across 55 countries, with particular traction when clients bring entire supply chains on board.
This supply chain activation creates the "community of learning" David emphasises, where contractors, designers, and project managers working on one client's portfolio carry those lessons to other projects, compounding impact across the industry. The next frontier involves deeper BIM integration and real-time alternative suggestions during the design process, moving carbon from constraint to design driver.